Crossing Over (11 page)

Twenty

If you should die now, where would you spend eternity? One of Satan's famous tools of this day is to mix world with religion. He wants you to believe that as long as you pray to God, you may live and do as you wish.

—L
ETTER FROM
W
ILBUR

W
hen we weren't tied up with screenwriters, book signings, and the like, Ottie and I would spend time at home watching television, gardening, baking, entertaining friends, visiting his family, going out to eat, or sightseeing.

Our little white Maltese, Fluffy, also kept us on our toes, demanding attention—and giving it back tenfold—incessantly. Sometimes, we'd also work on getting our parakeet, Peaches, to retreat from his silence by playing bird songs for him on the CD player.

I would be frequently reminded of our journey by my crystal swans in the living-room curio cabinet, and by the Kentucky Old Order Amish, who would steer their buggies by our house on Old Dixie Road to glimpse the now-famous renegade couple.

Occasionally, I would get out my blue velvet Amish hymn book to sing a song or two, including my favorite, “I Need No Mansion Here Below.''

I would also remember lighter moments, like how Ottie used to tease the Iowa Amish with word games—when he wasn't frustrating them with serious debate.

One game went like this:

Say shop three times.

Shop. Shop. Shop.

Now say it five times.

Shop. Shop. Shop. Shop. Shop.

Now say it three times quickly.

Shop, shop, shop.

Now say it once slowly.

S—h—o—p.

What do you do when you come to a green light?

Stop.

So fixated were they with the word “shop” that they were determined not to say it and would mistakenly reply “stop.” It worked every time.

In my spare moments at home, I also began reading scriptures in the Bible I had never paid much attention to growing up. Scriptures the Amish choose to ignore. Scriptures that don't coincide with their traditional thinking about such things as going to war, focusing on works, and salvation.

1 John 3:16 addresses the war issue with this passage: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

There is a similar message in Jeremiah 48:10: “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.”

On the matter of grace and works, Ephesians 2:8–9 clearly spells out the importance of grace: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves. It is a gift from God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

And regarding the Amish belief that salvation isn't assured believers, 1 John 5:11–12 leaves no doubt: “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

My entrance into the modern world had not only accorded me the benefits of convenience, it had given me the freedom to read the Bible as it should be read. To understand the full breadth of its teachings.

I have not absorbed all of it yet, not completely. And there are still some biblical issues that conflict with my desire to keep an open mind.

The whole concept of dinosaurs living sixty-five million years ago, for instance, seems incongruous.

The Bible, which only goes back six thousand years, mentions dragons but not dinosaurs. So how is it that archaeologists find the bones of dinosaurs but not the bones of dragons?

Moreover, the Amish are convinced history only goes back eight thousand years. How, then, can people be sure the bones they're finding are millions of years old? And how can they be sure they're putting the right appearances on the skeletons?

This all came to a head one day in our living room when Ottie and I met with Rick Farrant, my coauthor, his wife, Susie, and their young daughter, Amber. I think Rick started the debate by mentioning Chicago's exhibit of the world's largest Tyrannosaur, and the rest of us joined in.

“They say some of these dinosaurs are sixty-five million years old,” I said. “Who measured this? By whose measurements were these made? What proof have they got?”

“Well, I know you didn't learn this in school, but scientists have this thing called carbon dating,” Rick said. “And through carbon dating, they are able to determine how old bones are.”

“But how do they know they're putting the right appearance on this so-called dinosaur?” I said. “The only thing they've got is the bones. What if you find a dog carcass and put a cat covering on it? They could do that, couldn't they?”

“They could,” Rick said. “But scientists, while not 100 percent sure, have many techniques for determining what a dinosaur might have looked like.''

Rick then raised this question: “How do you know that the words you read in the Bible are the exact words passed down through the centuries?”

“Oh, don't go there!” Ottie bellowed.

“I'm not trying to shake your faith,” Rick said, looking at me.

“And you won't!” I fired back.

We all had a good laugh, and I acknowledged that little nuances had likely been altered in the numerous translations of the Bible, but that the general messages had been left intact.

Ottie, in my support I suppose, then mentioned that some Amish don't believe man has been on the moon—that man could have faked it on television, just as they do with movies. Maybe, he offered, it's not so unusual for some people to think man faked the dinosaurs, too.

For some reason, that reminded me of an Amish man who thought all the waters from the Great Flood were deposited in space, hence the blue skies. If man had truly gone into space, this person reasoned, the rocket would have penetrated the water and caused another flood.

I don't believe that for a minute, and I'm positive man has been in space. But this dinosaur thing—well, that's a whole different matter. Among other things, it seems to challenge God's handiwork and support the theory of evolution. God created man, plants, animals, sky, water, everything in seven short days. He didn't need sixty-five million years. In fact, one could presume from reading the Bible that there's no such thing as a span of time that long.

“But what if,” Ottie said, “God's sense of time is quite different from ours? A day is man's creation. It may have been one day to man and quite another to God.

“So, at the time of creation, maybe there was no time. Because God is infinite. So to God, there is no time.''

“But I don't believe,” I said, “that God had to depend on evolution to take thousands and thousands and thousands of years to make a little bird.”

“Did God tell you he made everything?” Ottie asked.

“Yeah.”

“Did God tell you how he made it?”

“No.”

“Couldn't he have used evolution, then, to do it?”

“Yeah, he could have. But he didn't have to. I don't know whether he did or not.”

“But couldn't he have used evolution?'' Ottie persisted. “Because the Bible doesn't say how he did it. It just says that he did it. So he could have said, ‘I'm going to create all these animals, but I'm going to do it in such a way that everything works itself into the perfect state that I want. So we have creatures crawling from the oceans to the land, then walking, then dinosaurs and lizards and flying reptiles, and little horses that become regular horses, and then there's man.”

This was a concept I hadn't thought of before. A very strange, uncomfortable notion.

But as difficult as it was to fathom, I knew I must consider it—for the sake of keeping that great virtue called an open mind.

“Well,” I said, “I'm not going to be like the Amish and say there weren't dinosaurs, because there might have been.”

Emphasis on the
might,
that is.

Later in the day, the subject was revisited when we drove south to Meshack Creek in Monroe County. We stopped where a narrow country road ended at water's edge and got out to inspect long, deep grooves in the creek's hard-rock bottom. The marks were several feet apart and ran diagonally against the current from one side of the creek to the other. Wagon wheel tracks, Ottie speculated. The vestiges of a route heavily traveled more than a century ago.

As we pondered his theory and imagined lines of settlers crossing the languid creek thicket to thicket, Rick discovered a veritable gold mine of fossils in the rocks along the creek's banks. In short order, we were all bending over trying to outdo each other in finding the best specimens.

“You realize,” Rick said, “that some of these fossils could be as old as 400 to 500 million years. Before the dinosaurs.”

I looked at him and nodded, not wanting to get into another protracted conversation. But more to the point, I was so fascinated by these curious little forms that I wanted to collect as many as I could, as fast as I could. There must have been fossils in Iowa, but I can't say that I ever noticed them.

I later learned that scientists believe Kentucky was once a shallow, prehistoric tropical sea, and that what I held in my hands were the remnants of tiny sea lilies called crinoids (or Indian beads), squidlike animals called cephalopods, shell creatures known as brachiopods, and corals and sponges.

I returned home with a plastic bag filled with spirals, cylinders, cones, and shells, and deposited it on the front porch for a more detailed examination later.

“Don't lose those,” I told Ottie. “I'm going to find me enough of these fossils that I'm going to build me my own dinosaur.”

I said it half in jest. Emphasis on the
half.

Twenty-One

Are you ready to meet Jesus when He comes? . . . Are you making the scars in Jesus' hands bigger if you keep right on going your way?

—L
ETTER FROM
B
ERTHA
(S
ISTER)

B
ertha, my older sister by six years, had promised me when I left Kalona that she would write frequently to let me know how things were going with my family. Once every two weeks at least. Maybe even once a week.

But since my departure almost four years ago, she had written only three times.

I would later learn that she had lost her desire to write because my father insisted on reading every letter sent to me. It didn't help that she is as timid as they come.

Whereas I was determined not to be pushed down too far when I was growing up, Bertha lost the battle early on. She was constantly made fun of for being overweight, for having trouble with her feet, and for having bad eyes. By my family. By others.

Not that I was small or didn't have my own physical ailments.

I weighed 170 pounds when I left the Amish. But for an active, big-boned woman like myself, it was a healthy 170. I could do almost anything a man could do on the farm, and certainly much more than Bertha was capable of doing.

Like Bertha, I also had trouble with my eyes. But I faked it. While Bertha was wearing glasses, I was telling people I could see things I couldn't see.

A remark my father made to me once had me convinced wearing glasses was disgraceful. One time when I told him I couldn't see something, he said in condescending fashion, “Awww, you just want to wear glasses, don't you?”

From that moment on—until I began teaching school—I was determined to make do seeing things with fuzzy edges, or not at all.

I am now trying to undo the effects of indulgent experimentation with English food, a lack of regular exercise, and a happy marriage. Since leaving the Amish, I have put on a considerable amount of weight, so much so that I'm hesitant to reveal how much.

I wish I had stopped the slide earlier, but it's my responsibility. I walk two miles a day and survive on what amounts to a diet of bird feed. My determination and self-esteem will restore me to a farm-girl-healthy 170 pounds. I'm sure of it.

And that is one of the biggest differences between myself and my sister. I do not like to fail, and when I was among the Amish I worked hard to make sure people respected me. My naturally outgoing nature also helped keep the wolves at bay, and my private study—absorbing any outside reading material I could get my hands on—gave me an intellectual edge that kept others off guard.

I wish I could say it was all planned, but in truth these were inherent gifts. I had my destiny. She had hers.

Not that she enjoyed her place of darkness. She once told me how people belittled her—from the owner of the Stringtown Grocery who paid her just a dollar an hour for a year and a half before bumping it a whopping fifty cents to the teachers who refuse to give her rides back and forth between work and home.

Bertha teaches at an Amish school in Milton, about a two-hour car drive south of Kalona. Her fifteen dollars-a-day salary prohibits her from returning to Kalona regularly, so she boards with a local Amish family. She could become part of a car pool with teachers in nearby Bloomfield, about fifteen miles away, but the teachers tell her it's too far to travel to pick her up en route to Kalona.

She complains about these things, but there is also a helpless acceptance that further pushes her into a submission that is evident in every one of her mannerisms. She walks huddled and stooped, as someone might do fending off a subzero blizzard. She speaks softly, as people often do in libraries. And when she shakes hands, she does so limply and without conviction.

She is, in the words of the Amish, a sorrowful old maid who is destined to remain unmarried—unless a widower chooses to have her as a caretaker for him and his children.

So entrenched is she in yielding to oppression that she is among my harshest critics at times. And clearly, a frightened one. Such was the case in one of her letters:

My Dear and Only Sister Irene:

Lonely greetings sent your way.

How do these lines find you? Since the last time you were at home, we often have to think about you! My thoughts have been I wish I could talk with you again, because I wouldn't mind asking you some questions, but it's not safe to write them down anymore.

Mom and Dad don't know I wrote, but I thought I should write you and tell you I got your letter. . . .

Do you have all your questions answered? Are you ready to meet Jesus when he comes?. . . Are you making the scars in Jesus' hands bigger if you keep right on going your way?

Your only, lonely sister:
Bertha

I would dearly love to help her leave the Amish—to give her a chance at a fruitful and rewarding life. Because inside, she is a wonderful, caring person with a heart of gold who wrote this to me while I was still living in Kalona: “You're the best sister a friend or sister could have.”

Now that I'm gone, though, I worry that if I am too direct or forceful in my efforts to sway her, she will stiffen and back away. Perhaps forever.

So I try to tell her how happy I am, and how one can live this new life without abandoning God and without risking the chance of going to heaven. In that way, I hope, she will summon the courage to take a bold step.

Dear Sister Bertha:

In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me. Psalm 56:11.

The sun is shining today and it's a beautiful day. It rained on Monday, so hopefully towards the end of the week I'll be able to plant my garden.

I don't feel really perky as I got a sore throat and a cold, so I decided to write some letters. I'm sending your letter to the Milton address because you would still be there. I used the Iowa Amish Directory to find your address, so hopefully I have the right one. . . .

Are Mom's legs doing better? My suggestions may not go far, but for Mom's sake I wish she would go see a specialist if they don't get better. I worry about her health and I'm afraid she could get blood poisoning and lose her legs if she's not careful.

My life is so free, happy, and peaceful, you couldn't imagine the difference, Bertha. My church is a loving Christian church and I've made many good friends. They love me and are friendly to me all the time. Nobody can imagine it, unless they live it or see it for themselves. I wish I could just come get my whole family so they could experience it. What a happy family we would be!

I realize there may be little hope for that, but it doesn't keep me from praying for it, because with God all things are possible. I didn't think I could ever leave, but he was leading me and without his help I couldn't have done it. The only thing that clouds my happiness is any pain it brought to anyone. It would really hurt me if I knew anyone made it harder for you, Mom, or anyone in my family because I left. You're my only sister and I love you dearly. I'll always be there for you or anyone else that needs me. . . .

Love always,
Irene

I find it hard to believe that Bertha will ever leave the Amish, both because of her shyness and because of the Amish propaganda.

The Amish tell their flock that English churches preach about heaven but not hell. They also say English churches twist scriptures to suit whatever needs come down the pike.

Finally, they tell members to beware of false prophets—and that would include people like myself who have left the Amish for the English world.

It is incomprehensible that they can form such opinions without experiencing something first. It is equally disturbing that they feel so compelled to rule by intimidation.

At one time, it would have been inconceivable for me to consider the Amish a cult.

But now I understand the meaning of the word, and I think it's possible they may be just that.

I don't hate the Amish for their transgressions. I feel sorry for them and worry about their spiritual welfare.

I feel sorry for Bertha, too, and pray that one day she, along with my mother, will be delivered from their living hell.